THE WEEK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 165, 12 July 1879, Page 2

THE WEEK.

If the telegrams that have appeared in the New Zealand papers during the last three weeks in connection with the native disturbance were to be placed, without any comment and unprefaced by any information whatever, before some steady going respectable old English gentleman who rarely left London, and never passed beyond the boundaries of the «• right little tight little island," I wonder what impression they would convey to his mind. I can picture to myself the old fellow, after in a dazed sort of way perusing all the startling news, raising his spectacles to his forehead, laying the paper on his knee, and exclaiming, " Why, bless my soul, they talk about the vast strides that New Zealand is making in railway construction, wheat growing, and loan raising, they even dare to compare her with our dear old England, aud dub her the ' Britain of the South,' but my belief is that all and everybody there, natives and white men alike, are gone clean mad." And, looking at the position of affairs from the same point of view as that from which this imaginary old gentleman would regard it, I don't see that anyone could be surprised at his arriving at such a conclusion. For what would he have read? That a fanatical elderly chief dwelling in a dirty, ill-kept, Maori pah, had by his pretensions to supernatural knowledge gained such a hold over his fellow countrymen that he was able to persuade them to go forth on an errand involving certainly imprisonment, possibly death, in the full belief that, whatever temporary inconveniences they might suffer, eventually they would reap their reward. Now drawing a parallel between himself and the' great founder of the Christian religion, and promising rewards to all who should serve him ; at another time assuming the role of a prophet foretelling the most startling events, and assuring those who obeyed his behests that by some miraculous intervention bullets that were aimed at them would be diverted from their course; and lastly, repeating the instructions that were issued to Joshua as to the means to be adopted for the taking of Jericho, and ordering the woman who by the prolonged absence of their husbands were beginning to have their faith in the wily old seer shaken, to proceed to the capital of the colony well supplied with horns, to encompass the gaol, and then to blow and blow and blow until the walls of the prison tell and their lords were emancipated. And there would be something more to astonish the old gentleman and confirm his suspicion as to our insanity. He would learn that Mr Sheehan the Native Minister, and Mr Mackay, the Government agent, had waited upon Professor Baldwin and requested him to forward a note to some interesting old cannibal who died }-ears ago, inviting him' to be good enough to forward from his higher sphere to this sublunary world his opinion of the manner in which the Government were dealing with the difficulty that had arisen on the West Coast of the North Island, and he would find that the spiiit had good-naturedly replied that it was all right, and that the course pursued met with his full approbation. And lastly he would extract from the papers before him that this craving for intercourse with the spirits had extended to the renowned chief Titoko Waru, who a few years ago was fighting our soldiers and murdering our settlers, and that he too was disposed to obtain comfort from a similar source, the sole difference being that Mr Sheehan and Mr Mackay applied to the spirits, and he applied for them. See the concluding portion of his latest official correspondence with Major Brown, the Government agent, which was to the following effect, " I say, old chap, send us a couple of bottles of rum, there's a good fellow." I won't on my own responsibility assert that we are all mad here, but I think if that old gentleman at Home to whom I have alluded were to repeat his conviction after due consideration that none of us ought to feel very cross with him. It seems to me that in ordering the mourning wives of the imprisoned ploughmen to visit Wellington with their friends for the sola

purpose of horn blowing that queer old customer Mr Te Whiti was guilty of the very refinement of cruelty. We" all know from experience or by repute how the winds do whistle and scream through the streets of the Empire City, and we also all of us know —at least all those who are iv the habit of reading the Wellington papers— how very much the residents in that favored town are given to blowing their own trumpets. Now, to the roaring of the wind and the squeaking of the trumpets, add the fearfully discordant noises that will be extracted from the 300 rains' and bullocks' horns by the wailing widows and their friends whom Te Whiti has ordered to encompass the gaOl, and then imagine how infernal will be the din. Te Whiti with all his eccentricities knows pretty well what he is about, and I should not wonder if there was a touch of grim humor underlying this last order of his. In a London paper received by the last mail I notice the following among the announcements of domestic interest : — BIRTHS. Wilkins.— At Madras, the wife of T. J. Wilkins, Esq., H M.'s Indian Medical Service, Civil Surgeon of Madura, of a daughter, on Easter morning. (By telegraph.) A?tdebßon.— At Melbourne, Australia, the wife of Thomas Anderson, Esq., of a aon, April 19. (By telegraph ) Really the uses to which electricity is applied in the present day are simply marvellous. A writer in an American paper said that he had arrived at the conclusion, after much observation} that every boy between the ages of ten and thirteen devoted three hours a day to endeavoring to discover a new kind of noise. This may or may not be true, but, even if it were, a novel amusement that I heard of this morning will, I think, for originality and excitement, beat that which is said to be the favorite pastime of Yankee lads. If Ido not vouch for its correctness, no one will believe what I am going to narrate, so I may commence by saying that it is perfectly true and that the occurrence took place within fifteen miles of Nelson. Three young9ters, tired of being idle, and wanting something to amuse them, were suggesting first one kind of game and then another, until one, inspired with a more brilliant idea than the others, exclaimed " Let's have a ride through the air." Called upon to explain how this was to be done, he stated his plan in a very few words. It was simple enough; one of them was to climb to the top of a poplar tree which the others were to chop down and he wa3 to fall with it. There was something very fascinating about the notion which was at once adopted, the youngest, only a iiny fellow, being sent up the tree while the others fetched the axes. Before they had cut through the trunk, however, the little chap accidentally let go his hold, and without waiting for the tree, fell to the ground, a very black eye indeed being his share of the sport. Nothing daunted by this little mishap, No. 2 climbed up, and in due course was cut down, but did not get the full force of the fall, as the tree lodged against a bank, though he was so shaken that it was some minutes before he was sufficiently recovered to take his turn with the axe. In time, however, he was himself again, and now the eldest brother was to have his "ride." Pie selected a tree over thirty feet high, and climbed to very nearly the top of it in order to have as long a ride as possible. Meanwhile the brother below was chopping away with all his might, and in the course of time his zealous endeavors met with their reward. There was a cr-r-r-aah, a whizzing through the air, and then a dull thud. About two hours later, the inanimate form that was to be seen stretched on the ground a few yard 3 from the topmost branches of the tree when it fell, began to move, and a few minutes afterwards the eyes opened, and now when that youth i 3 asked by his young friends if he would like a ride he replies, with that forcible elegance which marks the expressions of colonial lads, " Golly, no, I'll give that beßt," and then he rubs his head and tries to recollect how many thousands of millions of stars he saw when be and the tree came to earth. In a very interesting newspaper published in London entitled the Colonies and India, I notice in the correspondents' column the following inquiry : — " Is there any opening in New Zealand for a young English solicitor ? " Now solicitors as a rule are so unsophisticated, know so little of the world, and are so incapable of taking care of themselves, that my heart ached for this poor young inquirer when I read his question, and I at once sat down and wrote to him as follows : My dear , I see by your query in the Colonies and India that you are desirous of learning whether there is in New Zealand a favorable opening for a young English solicitor, and lam about to take upon myself the liberty of replying thereto. My answer will be brief, and must to some extent take the form of another question — " Have you learned how to make out a bill of costs ? " If not, stay where you are, for there are (I have it on the best of authority) hundreds of solicitors out here in a like predicament. If you do, come out and prosper. There is a fortune in store for you. Yours in all sincerity, j\